Speakers

Audioengine's original A2 speakers launched in 2008 and were immediately showered with praise. They were sized to feel right at home on a desk but also boasted smart design decisions and spectacular sound quality, both of which were more in line with traditional bookshelf speakers or studio monitors. The newly updated Audioengine A2+ ($249) retains its predecessor's baseline of quality but builds upon that wide range of usefulness with notable improvements for a variety of audio setups.

Thought purchasing a Christmas gift for your in-laws was tough? Try shopping for someone who knows everything about media gadgetry and can't abide anything but the best. The Mediaphile's affinity for films, games, music, and yes, eBooks, goes beyond the bounds of reason and continues to expand as the consumer market welcomes the latest tech innovations daily. Best believe he's on top of everything from next-gen gaming consoles to popular subscription-based apps. This presents a problem, because you think HDMI, DSLR, DAC and WAV are medical tests and/or prerequisite exams for grad school applications. Don't run to the Geek Squad yet. We've pulled together some awesome media-primed options worth your coin this holiday. He'll thank you -- and then you won't see him for a couple months, save for Doritos runs and the rare bathroom break.

The majority of us have become extremely comfortable with the mediocre phonics that ooze through the speakers of our laptops and PCs or the less-than-stellar resonance produced from our headphones. This is sad, seeing as how providing a significant audio boost can transform your desk into the ultimate home entertainment console.
For those seeking a more potent and louder alternative to their built-in receivers or noise-canceling cans, we assembled this collection of awesome stereo monitors sure to have your ears ringing. No, they don't have to break the bank (though they certainly can, if you're the splurging type). From portable blasters to music studio amplifiers, each is Bona fide audio hardware powerful enough to enliven any Netflix, Spotify, or Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 sessions at the computer counter. Now get jammin'.

Pursue perfection. Some people -- people at the top of their games -- consider it a personal mantra. That theory holds for the design world, too, and it's why industrial designer Joey Roth recently released a third version of his celebrated speaker system. Apparently, he just wasn’t satisfied yet.

There's no shortage of speakers vying for your computer's affections. The trouble is, most have land grab aspirations that put Ted Turner's to shame. Nocs NS2 Air Monitors ($450) are precisely designed to suit even the "coziest" of desktop environments, but like any child of the information age, prefer not to be pigeonholed by any single role.

Originally designed to play music on only their own products, Apple's AirPlay technology now allows users to stream multimedia from iPhones, iPads and computers to any enabled HDTV or speaker system via wi-fi. Because Apple now allows third parties to use their tech, myriad standalone speaker systems designed specifically for AirPlay are on the market: some are better than others, and they all span the price and design spectra. Here are our 10 picks for some of the best AirPlay speakers available.

The Symbol Audio Tabletop Hi-fi ($1,800) speaker is positioned as an attractive and space-saving solution for discerning listeners in search of better home audio. The console includes two 4-inch full-range drivers, which boast titanium cones, paired with a down-firing 1/4-inch sub, and is powered by a 2.1 channel class D amp; this is capable of pushing 8 watts to the stereo drivers and 15.5 to the sub.

The damn Cloud. Everything’s going there. Pretty soon, you’ll have to go to the Cloud to change your underwear. But for now, you’ll have to settle for the OD-11, the world’s first Cloud speaker — just introduced at CES 2013 — by the incredible folks at Teenage Engineering. If the nomenclature and design look familiar,...

Samsung’s crush on vacuum tube amplification started with the DA E750 Vacuum Tube AirPlay Dock announced at last year’s CES. Now it’s a full blown love affair — complete with rewards club memberships at the local Shag-a-Day Inn. According to the tech giant, the newly announced HW-F750 Vacuum Tube Soundbar and paired wireless subwoofer is...

Joey Roth’s desktop speakers ($495) made a splash with both the audio and design set thanks to their ceramic construction and striking silhouette. Now he’s released a matching companion subwoofer ($695+), expanding the system’s frequency response down to 40Hz. Just like the speakers, the Joey Roth subwoofer is crafted from simple, refined materials including stainless...

While iDevices flipped the consumer audio industry ass over tea kettle in a brush of a click wheel, the audiophile world stubbornly weathered the storm for years, hoping the digital compression nightmare might just vanish away in time. The introduction of the McIntosh McAire hints that convenience is gaining ground with the stuffy, stubborn niche...

Look around at today’s computers and you’ll see exactly where companies are putting their money. Better-than-high-def screens with touch-sensitivity, ThunderBolt this and that, blisteringly fast graphics cards — it’s all about the visuals. And while we’re not ones to complain about amazing picture quality, it does get pretty difficult to enjoy lightning without any thunder,...

Looking back on the past twenty years, we’ve made some pretty big strides when it comes to consumer technologies. But with all these advancements, why are we still listening to music through the same speaker wire our dads used? Up until now, the only way to get decent sound quality was through being hardwired; yes,...

The thought of cleanly wiring an audiophile-grade home theater system has deterred many a man-cave-pimper, until now. The Aperion Audio Intimus 4T Summit Wireless System ($2,999+) is so simple to set up, you don’t even need a receiver. Instead, each of the seven speakers and the subwoofer houses an individual digital receiver and dual amplifiers....

Five years ago, Mexicans who sold tacos out of the back of a van were targets of the health department. Now, kids from suburbs buy trucks, sell mashup tacos, and get their own TV shows. How did they do it? The inspiration they received from TED. Building on the millions who have absorbed the ideas...

If these speaker look like they belong on the side of a jet fighter, then you haven’t heard anything yet. Despite their stratospheric look, the Eclipse TD508 Mk3 can faithfully mimic the sounds of terra-bound sonics using a proprietary Time Domain technology that ensures listeners are ensconced in the heart of a live performance —...

Sonos’ Play:3 wireless HiFi speakers were a huge hit when they were first released in the middle of last year. Great sounding audio quality from a wireless product isn’t always guaranteed, but the Play:3 did the trick. The one the portable wonder did lack, however, was the added punch of top-drawer bass. Now with the...

As the anchor of the world’s first true wireless high end loudspeaker system, Dynaudio’s XEO 5 Towers ($4,500) break new ground. They’re designed to be used with virtually anything that plays music, including iPhones and iPads, and can be placed up 100 meters away from other audio components — perfect for those of you living...

Looking to make your extended weekend celebration extra memorable? Well, our editors have culled through our latest posts to help provide some last minute inspiration for your Memorial Day weekend, whether the festivities are at your place, or elsewhere. You can thank us by throwing another burger on the grill. Two slices of cheese, please....

Some of the best sounding speakers could use a pleasing aesthetic touch. A basic black box is nice and simple, but also a tad boring in the realm of desktop audio. If you have a desire for high fidelity and high-end looks, look no further than Well-Rounded Sound. Using full range drivers with 100 Hz...

The radio alarm clock business has never been a particularly sexy one, not counting, of course, the occasional technological breakthroughs in snooze technology (we set ours at 9 min). But Geneva is waking up the sleepy clock radio industry with the Geneva Sound System Model XS ($250), a slick ultra-compact bluetooth audio system and the...

Ask any studio engineer worth his ponytail about Adam speakers, and they will tell you their monitors have populated some of the best recording facilities in the world for years. The reason for this is a passion for forward thinking design and revolutionary use of materials, such as carbon fiber diaphragms and ribbon transducers. While...

Logitech has a new dog in the iOS speaker fight. Teaming up with Ultimate Ears — best known for the ubiquitous in-ear monitors you see worn by everyone from Bono to Bieber — the Logitech UE Air Speaker ($400) is a single-unit sound system whose engineers are out to prove that it has equal parts...

The Arcam rCube is another high-end iPhone dock to hit the home audio market along the lines of the Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Air. What sets Arcam’s offering apart from the rest is the Sonos-like ability to wirelessly network up to four rCubes throughout the house, using an included USB dongle, for a complete home...

As rabid movie, music fans and gamers, we’re always on the hunt for gear that can push our home entertainment experience to 11 (much to our better half’s chagrin). This roundup includes some of our favorite home theater products out today that we’d love to host in our living room. Continues after the jump.

We credit the Rams’-like looks of the new hidden radio & Bluetooth Speaker on Kickstarter for catching our eye this morning — despite our luke warm feelings about most Bluetooth audio. The monolithic can avoids spoiling its clean lines with external buttons by incorporating a simple but effective twist top design. The first twist turns...

Shrouded in gleaming aluminium and molded rubber, the Revo K2 ($470) tower not only out-looks other, plebeian docks, but also offers access to virtually every radio signal under the sun including old-fashioned over-the-air and internet streaming stations including last.fm. Perfect for your morning dose of NPR. Besides a dearth of plastics, the K2 also features...

Most TV speakers have the acoustical chops of a cowbell orchestra. We put up with them simply because alternatives are pricey, bulky, and a pain in the ass to install in a clean and proper manner. The Yamaha YAS-101BL Front Surround System improves on these common drawbacks in several ways. It’s relatively easy on the...

Believe it or not, there is an entire generation of ‘audio-orphans’ who have never known that music isn’t meant to come out of undersized, mass-produced, plastic boxes. And standing right behind them is a slightly older generation who may know better the virtues of quality speakers, but have been caught in the spell of ‘digital...

The result of four years of R&D, the handmade all-wood Blumenstein Ultra Fi Orca Speakers ($550) are designed with a singular purpose: deliver bone-tingling sonics from a bookshelf speaker without a wallet annihilating price. Hi-Fi buffs (and common sense) will tell you that one of the best ways to make this happen is to reduce...

Etsy isn’t the first destination that comes to mind for audio gear, but stumbling across these jaw-dropping Mt. Man Speakers ($900) from Philadelphia-based maker Jesse Gerard, aka Carrot Grant, is a welcome surprise. Designed and made by hand from solid cherry, each speaker features twin copper-clad woofers, gold-plated binding posts for banana plugs or 12...

Okay, we’ll come clean. Technically these speakers are marketed for portable gaming. They’ll actually work with any device with a 3.5mm jack to deliver decent room-filling sound, though, thanks to their 360-degree omnidirectional speakers. More importantly, each speaker can pump out beats for 12 hours straight from the built-in rechargeable batteries. Combined with their included...

As men, we’ll always be suckers for shiny things. There’s no point in fighting it. Particularly when they can help do things like battle our inbox(s), catch up on missed episodes of the shows we’re too busy to watch, or single-handedly sway the tide of battles using just our thumbs. This gift list is a...

Probably the biggest issue most people have with installing a surround sound setup is dealing with wiring. Hiding the wires for the center channel, sub, and left/right surrounds is typically easy since they often tuck behind the entertainment console. It’s really the rear surrounds that pose the biggest risk of decor destruction. Aperion Audio’s new...

Our tech lust knows no bounds. The same goes for our desire to own custom and unique products that distinguish our possessions from the average catalog trawler. Unfortunately gadget manufacturers typically think in quantities of millions, not hundreds, which makes owning distinctive electronics a difficult feat. These Audio Speakers ($199) from Chicago based Etsy seller...

As much as you want to imagine someone handing one of those gleaming rainbow tubes off to Usain Bolt, they’re really 2-inch magnetically sealed subwoofers that come as part of the Edifier Aurora 2.1 Speaker System ($76). Now sold in nine different color patterns with comic book names like Liquid Silver, Luminous Yellow, and Stormy...

Gear Patrol’s editors have always been fans of Aperion home theater systems mainly because they offer outstanding audio quality relative to their price. Recently the company has made significant strides though to expand their line of products outside of your typical 5.1+ speaker packages. Released today, the Aperion SLIMstage30 sound bar is the Portland Oregon...

Some folks hate fat people and others hate fat speakers, particularly when they happen to get cozy to über-slim televisions like the Samsung 9000 series. That’s why Definitive Technology (affectionately known as Dev Tech by home theater nerds) felt it was critical to develop the Mythos XTR-50 high performance home theater speaker. Measuring just 1.5″thick,...

Back in May, Ben first spoke about man’s inherent quest for improvement of the audio kind by way of his review of Aperion’s Intimus 4T Hybrid SD System. In Ben’s review he challenged us to find a better performing system for under $1,600. Always up for a challenge, this editor embarked on another type of...

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: your laptop’s puny speakers simply won’t cut it. They’re not even good enough to aptly project the beeps and boops of your NES emulator, much less to accompany your iTunes library. That said, the venerable accessory players at Logitech offer several options to suit your auditory...

Where do you listen to your music? We here at GP are all about quality sound systems but we also recognize that every occasion may not be the right one for a six-piece, $6,000 sound system. If you find yourself moving around frequently and want a speaker that’s compact but still kicks out room-filling sound,...

Good things can come in small packages. Right? Right. The Velodyne MiniVee 8 is a hard-hitting subwoofer that will round out any man’s home theater. Built with an 8″ woofer made of Kevlar, mounted to a diec-ast aluminum basket and powered by 1000 watts of amplification, the MiniVee 8 emits exceptionally tight, deep and resonant...

What do you get when you mix a premium speaker company with a performance design firm like BMW DesignWorksUSA? Well, the Klipsch Palladium P-39F is a good estimation. The floorstanding speakers are a collaboration of design and sound technology. The CEA 2008 Best Floorstanding Speaker award winning P-39F speakers are encased in a curved form...

Ready your living room, you’re about to be buried in an avalanche of glorious rich surround sound. The Intimus 6T-DB Hybrid XD Surround Sound Speaker System is one of Aperion Audio’s finest home theater systems. The system is comprised of two 6T towers, 6C center channel, two 5DB dipole/bipole surround speakers and a Bravus 12D...